Bill Clinton on Monica Lewinsky: 'I screwed up with this girl'

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A new PBS documentary reveals that Bill Clinton struggled with whether to come clean to the American public — as well as those close to him, including cabinet members disbelieving of the allegations — about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

He even went so far as to reach out to pollster Dick Morris to test the waters on whether he should be honest about his relationship with Lewinsky. Of course, this was after he had spouted the whole “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” spiel.

“[Clinton] said, ‘Ever since I got here to the White House I’ve had to shut my body down — sexually, I mean — but I screwed up with this girl. I didn’t do what they said I did, but I may have done so much that I can’t prove my innocence,'” Morris says in the documentary “Clinton.” “I said, ‘Let me test it, let me run a poll.’ So I took a poll and I tested popular attitudes on that and I called him back and I said, ‘They will forgive the adultery, but they won’t easily forgive that you lied.'”

Later, as everyone who was conscious in the late ’90s recalls, he admitted to oral sex and other improprieties with Lewinsky.

“Clinton” premieres on PBS Feb. 20 and 21 as part of the “American Experience” series.